When a software application is first developed, the data it references may be organized in separate files. From the application developer's perspective, this organization may be convenient when the application is in its infancy. However, as an application evolves and requirements change, many more files may be introduced into the application data set. At some point, the number of files may prove to be a burden from the developer's perspective. Thus, over time the notion of having separate files may progress from being desirable to being problematic.
While potentially problematic in some regards, maintaining a data set in separate files may be advantageous for supporting requirements for concurrent access to the data set. If the data are distributed across many files, management of concurrent access may be of lesser concern if concurrent access is rarely needed to the data in a single file.
Given various complexities associated with programmatically tracking a large number of files in a data set, certain circumstances may call for consolidating the data set into a single file or just a few files. However, some applications may have multiple processes which require concurrent access to the data set. If the data set is concentrated in just a few files and concurrent access is frequent, then efficient management of concurrent access may be of greater concern.
Data management software, for example, a database management system, may be used to control concurrent access to a data set. However, some applications may be unsuitable for implementation using data management software because this software may be cumbersome to install and maintain and may introduce significant overhead.
A system and method that address the aforementioned problems, as well as other related problems, are therefore desirable.